The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes.
ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement.
ESG Lab's expert third party perspective is based on our own hands on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments.

For many years, organizations thought about business continuity in much the same way they thought about business insurance — yes, it was important, but rarely was it top of mind. But that’s all changed. Many organizations have, unfortunately, discovered that even a scant few minutes of service downtime can have deleterious effects on their business operations, resulting in lost revenue, diminished customer confidence and heightened compliance risk.
For those and other reasons, IT executives have raised the bar on business continuity preparedness for their organizations in all ways. New technologies, business processes and partnerships, combined with a raised level of importance for testing and a full appreciation of what virtualization can and can’t do for business continuity, are essential to new thinking around avoiding the impact
of an unplanned service interruption.
Download this informative Whitepaper to learn more about how Veritas Netbackup 8.1.2 can help.

The goal of usability testing, simply put, is to make sure that a user can complete the tasks they are expected to
complete. Usability testing doesn’t test whether or not the functions of the application, website or connected device work correctly, but rather that a user intuitively understands how to perform these tasks — and how easy or difficult it was to do so.
With usability testing, “close enough” won’t cut it. A product may have a superior architecture, a great set of features, good performance, scalability and a number of other positive attributes. However, all of this effort is wasted if the user experience is inadequate. An application, website or connected device that is not user-friendly is just as bad
as a buggy version and can lead to diminished revenue, product abandonment or a total failure. An application with poor usability can also negatively affect a brand

Consumers expect a seamless, high-quality experience in today’s mature app economy. They want brands to keep up with new technologies like geo-fencing and personalization, as well as the latest ecosystems like voice assistants and connected cars.
With this high bar for quality, QA organizations often struggle to keep up with:
1. Rapid Release Schedules
2. Personalization
3. New Technologies (Voice, AI)
4. Geo-Awareness and Localization 5. Device Fragmentation
6. Unexpected Customer Use Cases
The cost of failure is high in QA. Time, money, and customer loyalty are all at risk when digital experiences don’t meet users’ high expectations.

The holy grail of recruitment is prediction: how well you can predict a candidate’s success based on a limited number of touch points. Game-based assessments provide insight into the best predictor of job performance: a candidate’s cognitive ability.
IN THIS EBOOK, YOU’LL LEARN:
How game-based assessments increase candidate completion rates while mitigating bias
The drawbacks of legacy cognitive testing
Why measuring cognitive traits through games was impossible until recently
The types of employers who benefit most from a game-based approach to assessment
Download the free eBook now

Countless studies and analyst recommendations suggest the value of improving security during the software development life cycle rather than trying to address vulnerabilities in software discovered after widespread adoption and deployment. The justification is clear.For software vendors, costs are incurred both directly and indirectly from security flaws found in their products. Reassigning development resources to create and distribute patches can often cost software vendors millions of dollars, while successful exploits of a single vulnerability have in some cases caused billions of dollars in losses to businesses worldwide. Vendors blamed for vulnerabilities in their product's source code face losses in credibility, brand image, and competitive advantage.

It always surprises me that as eCommerce marketers we give lip service to the importance of testing, buy many of us don't take the time to fine-tune our email programs. If you are able to identify a few elements through testing that resonate with your customers and then employ those insights in your ongoing program, the improvements may be sustainable over time.

Service virtualization tools simulate software components so end-to-end testing can proceed even when dependent components are not available. That means teams can perform integration tests sooner and more often, accelerating the delivery of high-quality, thoroughly tested applications.

The operation of your organization depends, at least in part, on its data.
You can avoid fines and remediation costs, protect your organization’s reputation and employee morale, and maintain business continuity by building a capability to detect and respond to incidents effectively.
The simplicity of the incident response process can be misleading. We recommend tabletop exercises as an important step in pressure-testing your program.

99tests offers a cloud-based, crowd-sourced testing platform where users can be anywhere in the world. Providing secure, simple, and convenient remote access was a key challenge.
Read the case study to see how the Akamai helped 99tests provide simple, secure access to their application.

IT managers are struggling to keep up with the “always available” demands of the business. Data growth and the nearly ubiquitous adoption of server virtualization among mid-market and enterprise organizations are increasing the cost and complexity of storage and data availability needs. This report documents ESG Lab testing of Dell EMC Storage SC Series with a focus on the value of enhanced Live Volume support that provides always-available access with great ease of use and economics.

HPE StormRunner Load is a cloud based performance testing solution that helps agile development teams release robust products that scale with confidence. The comprehensive analytic will identify performance bottleneck before deployment.

Cisco engaged Miercom to conduct a competitive analysis of its Catalyst 2960-X switch versus two comparable Hewlett-Packard switches from the 2920 and 5120 product families. Miercom executed comprehensive hands-on testing and evaluated the performance of some widely deployed features that are critical for reliable functioning of enterprise networks. The test methodology focused on specific areas in which Cisco believed there were key competitive differentiators between the products. Test results validated include throughput, latency, energy efficiency, stacking, LACP load balancing and Quality of Services (QoS) performance. Miercom found that the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X demonstrated superior performances against the competitive switches in the tests featured in this report.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and -XR Series Switches earned the Miercom Certified Green Award for saving over 50% in annual energy operating costs compared to the industry average. The switches were evaluated in accordance with the Miercom Certified Green Testing Methodology. Test results show the benefits of Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and -XR Series Switches.